Roosevelt Aim to Provide “Security of Decent Homes”

Provision of “the security of decent homes” was defined by President Roosevelt in his annual message of January 4, 1935, as one of the leading objectives of his administration. In a special message of June 8, 1934, he had said:

With the full cooperation of the Congress we have already made a serious attack upon the problem of housing in our great cities. Millions of dollars have been appropriated for housing projects by federal and local authorities, often with the generous assistance of private owners. The task thus begun must be pursued for many years to come….In pursuing this policy we are working toward the ultimate objective of making it possible for American families to live as Americans should.

The progress made to date under earlier legislation must have been disappointing to the President, for in his message of January 4 he said only that housing had been “the subject of experimentation and study,” and added: “Here, too, the first practical steps can be made through the proposals which I shall suggest in relation to giving work to the Unemployed.”